I have been approached by a client to purchase all rights to a map that I made for them in 2004 and updated in 2005. My original dealing was with an organization that coordinates transport planning in South Boston. They now want to acquire the map for the exclusive use of their 20 members some of which include very large companies such as Gillette and Bank of America. They have agreed to credit me for the work on future re-uses and to let me use the piece for self promotion. They also want to acquire the rights to modify the map so that they can have their in house staff do the updates in the future. This is my first time dealing with this type of request and potential lost of business. They have asked me to come up with a figure for them to acquire these rights. Any advice on fees or percentages of original cost and if any one has a sample contract for this type of "All-Rights" deal It would be much appreciated.

LenHoffman

Posted 15 September 2005 - 09:19 AM

LenHoffman

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Martin this may not be a great way of figuring a general amount. But my brother has his own jingle company and most of his business is for radio spots. One way he calculates cost is he figures in how many times a day/month/year the jingle is going to be used then multiplies that number by the length of time it will be used. So for a general commercial that could be used for several years the price is higher than say for a special offer/limited time promotional commercial.

Derek Tonn

Posted 15 September 2005 - 08:21 PM

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One question I would have would relate to the term "exclusive use". Could the base artwork, in any way, be used in other projects without it being obvious that you had used the "guts" of the map in question (where the client wouldn't care if you continued to use portions of the map they are buying)? Without seeing the map it is difficult to speculate along those lines. However, I know that some of my clients have permitted me to "recycle" portions of maps that had been developed for their "exclusive" use....as long as it was altered enough where the average user would not notice that it was based upon the structure/elements of a map for another client.

If it is more of a "one of a kind" piece that could not possibly be used in other alternative applications, then I am afraid I probably don't have much in the way of advice to offer to you related to a "buy-out". I've never had this issue come up in our firm, since we make it a practice of including copyright and reprint privileges for our map designs as standard part of a client's initial payment. We're a different type of mapping firm though, with very little "common subject matter" design work that can be simultaneously used by multiple clients.

If I have any revelations on the subject over the next few days, I'll make sure to share them! Sorry I don't have any better advice to offer you though.....

Mike H

Posted 20 September 2005 - 06:58 AM

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martin,

If you choose to sell your map, leverage the largest $$ number you can push them for. This number is hard to determine, because it probably has less to do with the value of your map and more to do with the pockets of the buyer.

Once you sell the map, regardless of contractual fine print, you have lost both the map and the ability to control what happens to the map as base image. I assume they want your editable illy file?

One way to look at $$ is to think about how much revenue you may get if you were to do the work for them for the next 5 years, but even that number is much less than the value of the map itself. The map will be dispersed into the network of this firm, and will be utilized as a 'free commodity' amongst it's staff locations and those graphic design firms who are affiliated with them.

Unfortunately what will probably occur is a graphical butchering of sorts over the years, with an ecclectic assortment of locator symbols, drop shadows and other detractions plunked on by various ad agencies. So, if you sell it, you may not want your name on it, because of these future variants - I have been dissapointed to see many of my clients maps become the property of various ad agencies and be hacked up, with or without my logo, and certainly without my knowledge. The legal rights are null and void since most of us do not have a staff of lawyers on retainers... an apology is the best I've recieved from whoever 'leaked' the map graphic.

So - how to resolve? You can try to liscence the map for one-time use by thier in-house agency, which is not very different than doing the work yourself. You can try to be a liason between the company and the 20 affiliates, and suggest a partnership of sorts to be in a support role at a lower rate than you may have established with the original client. Overall, the client wants to own your map to save them money and increase thier ability to tweak it in-house, on demand. You need to appeal to thier financial concerns by showing that you remain the most economical resource for future editing.

One way to leverage this is to offer to sell a raster map only, which limits thier ability to F# it up graphically and protects your investment in the vector file.

My summary suggestion is to be very wary of selling the vector file, as it will effectively eliminate your services from not just this client, but potentially a host of clients, and you will have lost control of the file completely. Now, if the $$ number is high enuf you may be perfectly happy to sell! But that is a rare case in our line of work.

I'd like to hear Dennis' suggestions, as I think he has run into this concerning Chicago.

David T

Posted 20 September 2005 - 11:28 AM

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To offer a little of the flip side -

Consider whether you want to do business with this firm again. If you set the price too high, they may just walk away. And, if the price is too high, they may just consider doing the same work in house. Or, they may go to another cartographer that will have less understanding of their use, and sell the complete rights to them very cheaply.

Is it right for them to do that? Probably not, since they'll most likely just take your design and layout, and use it for themselves. Realistically, could you afford to hire a lawyer and sue for loss revenue and infrigement? If you can, great. But if the cost of recovery is higher than the cost of the project, it's not worth it either.

I agree with the previous poster who said you may want to remove your name from the map all together. The map will morph, and, if they don't just pull your name off themselves, you may not want to be associated with that product in it's later life.

I managed to come to a reasonable agreement with the client and all is well. I have given their members rights to use the map (as is) for a token sum of money. We have also agreed to limit these rights to the current map which will become outdated within 16 months at which time I will be hired to update the map and rigths will be re-negotiated at that time. All members that want to modify the map (resize, crop etc...) need to come to me and hire me to do the work or produce a new map. All and all a sit down meeting (vs. email) cleared up any misunderstandings and I was able to suggest a solkution that would suit my purpose and their needs without limiting my long term interests in this map.

Dennis provided me with a sample contract and I found some useful info on contracts on this site: Artists and contracts

Rob

Posted 23 September 2005 - 02:51 AM

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Martin,

As this is perhaps too late for your use, in one of my contracts I had a clause giving me 50% of royalties for any use beyond the original production/selling of the map, as negotiated by the publisher. In my case there was some thought that it could be used to promote an up coming flim, so if McDonald's (or anyone else) wanted to use the image, on their placemat say to market locally, I'd be in on the licensing of that use. That was the first time I came across such a circumstance, so I don't know if the percentage was fair (and it has yet to have been envoked) but it seemed reasonable at the time.